Description

Located in a small group of campsites on the Southern end of the Blob formation. Please ask permission for bouldering in occupied campsites.

Stem Gem is the Quintessencial JTree boulder problem, embodying the essence of Joshua Tree climbing: Highly technical and often times perplexing movement across extremely friction dependant, featurless granite. Indeed, this problem has nary a hold on it, the only thing making it climbable is its coarse friction and the undulating nature of the stone.

Getting both feet off the ground on this problem can be an event in itself, bringing ones flexability and stemming prowess to task. Start by stemming up the concave face and then traversing right across a faint/blunt arete. Most continue right and stand on the "bump", however it is possible to avoid the bump and friction direct (v3 friction in itself), continue up the water groove and to the top of the boulder. Jump across boulder to get off.

The starting foot dish is getting crumbly. It seems like this area of the rock has changed a lot since its first ascent. Looking at the old photos of the rock you will notice the 3 slashes are not present.

That up and left run and jump was done decades ago. It used to be a quasi favorite that has fallen out of favor. Probable FA by John Yablonski, and I've even done it in the same time frame. Had to be like in 1981 or so. The one even further left where you jump off the boulder to the series of solution pockets is a good one too.